Chapter 98 - The Shrine - 2

Shadow led the eleven players down the stairs into the core region. The walls along the stairs were lined with glowing paintings. The beautiful drawings immediately caught the attention of the team. All of them, except Shadow thought that they might be some kind of story or directions that would serve as clues for exploring traversing the core region.

On looking at them, Shadow immediately realized that these pictures were the same that could be seen on the walls of the hall of the temple of the twelve in the White Heart city. They depicted the story of the twelve lords of the temple. He would have gone ahead without any comment, if not for the fact that the rest were taking pictures of the walls assuming that they might need to check it later in the core region

"Those pictures depict the story of the twelve lords of the temple of the twelve," said Shadow as he turned around to look at them. "They are found on the walls of the temple in the city. You can admire them in the temple later," said Shadow implying that they shouldn't care about it and move faster.

"There might be some clues in them," said Quiet Fire looking at Shadow a bit disgruntled. "How can he think that these are here just for decoration and not significant to the core region of the temple? All such scenarios in games indicate clues. Don't they?" she thought without voicing out.

"Yes, the clue is that this is an old shrine which the Lord Silvannus had been protecting for a long time and constructed a fort around it. It probably was just a cave at his time," said Shadow as he moved forward. "This area is something which the spectre had access to and probably was well known to him if he could open it this easily, but he had no idea and feared the thing which he called a shrine. So, I sincerely doubt it would be really useful. Anyways, just take your time and follow down the stairs. I will go ahead and scout. Will inform in team chat if I find anything important," said Shadow.

Though he knew that these drawings are not important, he couldn't explain it to them properly. So, he just told them something that he might know more than he is revealing and hoped that they would believe him. Even, if they didn't, he could take the time they were taking snapshots to go and check the shrine for traps. He just hoped that they would be able to communicate through team chat at the shrine.

His answer seemed extremely arrogant and it gave them the impression that he thinks they were stupid to consider these drawings important. It pissed off Quiet Fire and a few others. "What is wrong with him? Why is he in such a hurry?" asked Merlin who didn't think that Shadow is a reckless character.

"He seems to be in a hurry," said Rudra. "He is usually quite levelheaded. He might be in some hurry, but I don't think he doesn't have any information about the shrine."

"Be as it may, we best take the snapshots as fast as we can and get going. There is a good chance that he is right, and it is an old shrine. It is bound to have something worth all this work," said Merlin as he was unsatisfied with the reward of the quest. Most of the weapons were moved to the shop of the Crimson Realm guild and he didn't consider it a significant profit even after Rudra promised that he would sponsor the adventurer team.

He was hoping that they could use the fort more than Rudra. He knew that, they shared the work in conquering it and if Shadow became a part of the adventurer team which he will create, he was sure that once Crimson Realm got hold of a proper guild headquarters in the city, he could use this fort for this team's base of operations.

"Aren't you too greedy brother, all the things we found at the fort are bound to provide us a lot of gold," said Tetsujin.

"You are a dumbass. Why would I be content with that, when I am sure that we are going to a bigger feast. It is the reason why we emptied our bags of most things keeping only necessities and stronger equipment," replied Merlin.

In the meantime, Shadow managed to reach the end of the stairs. There weren't any traps along the stairs and at the bottom of the stairs, he found a small circular enclosure having a diameter of 5 meters and an exit directly opposite him.

Shadow stood on the last stair and looked carefully into the enclosure. There were nothing on the walls of the enclosure which were also made of stone. The only things he found suspicious were the runes at the entrance near him and he could also see some runes around the exit. There was a stone board on top of the exit which read, "Power with responsibility makes monsters of men - Silvannus Shreeve".

He had seen such runes before in his previous life and understood what they might be. It was something like a check of the race of the player entering the area. There was something else included but he didn't understand them as they seemed very complicated and of a higher level than he was in his previous life. He knew that the players of the guild Foedus Rex were members of the light faction and were able to get through and hence, he probably wouldn't have any issue passing through. He informed the teammates of the enclosure through the team chat and entered it.

As soon as he stepped through the entrance, the runes at the entrance began to glow violently. This was expected as they would be checking the player but what was more surprising to him that the runes at the exit also began to glow. He immediately thought there would be a test, and something would come through the exit. So, he pulled out his dagger in preparation, but suddenly he felt a force pulling him to the exit.

The runes shined more brightly on both ends as a small tunnel made of light formed between them and a light screen appeared behind him. It moved forward pushing him through the exit and he landed in a dark area.

"System: You are in a special zone. You can't communicate with anyone or logout in this area."

"Logout is not allowed too? I expected that communications would be stopped. This is ridiculous," thought Balthazar as the message appeared. He was disgruntled and was irritated by the various deviations in the game from what he had read in the forums. He couldn't chat with others outside and hoped that with him not being to communicate with them, they would try and get into the enclosure and start the test

He seemed to be in a long desolate tunnel and behind him there was nothing but solid rock. A number of ornamental rock torches decorated the tunnel on both sides. A voice sounded out in the void as he looked around. It seemed to come though the rocks of the tunnel from all around him and was almost deafening.

"Ah finally someone, managed to get in. How come no one tried for the baptism for such a long time," said the voice.

"Hello, I am not sure where I am or what this is supposed to be? I am just an adventurer exploring some ruins," said Shadow.

"Ruin? The great temple is reduced to simple ruins?"

"Yes. I was exploring the ruins of an old fort called the Silvannus fort when I was suddenly transported to this... What is this actually?" asked Shadow

"Silvannus Fort? Hmm. I thought that he actually disregarded his post. Was the fort made by Silvannus Shreeve?"

"I think so. I found his name in the ruins."

"Guess, a lot has happened, since the elf general was successful. He was the only one who managed to reach the end of the test till now, but even he failed," said the voice in a lamenting tone.

A spectre like being suddenly appeared in front of him. He had a purple colored halo around him. The worst thing was that Balthazar immediately related him to someone else. It looked to be the same species of that was being tortured by the five lords in the cave. It was flaming skull and had a scaly skin just like the one in the memory fragment.

"I am the guardian of the shrine. Not really a guardian though as I can't get out of this place. I am a remnant of a soul that is responsible for putting you through the test. Based on you evaluation, you will be rewarded," said the flaming skull.

"Did those lords use the souls of the thirteen guardians to secure the treasures or something," thought Shadow as soon as he saw the soul remnant.

"You seem to be an assassin. Most assassins tend to focus too much on their quick and sharp attacks and fail to understand that the true path to domination requires on to be strong. Strong enough to endure a lot of enemies. Your test starts now. To complete the test, you need to destroy 5000 zombies in this tunnel. You will be evaluated on the number you defeat before you accept defeat. If you fail to realize the situation and refuse to concede, you might die," said the remnant as it disappeared.

[Human Zombie] (Common monster)

Level: 13;

HP: 3000/3000;

Zombies started to move towards him from the other end. Zombies are classified as the most basic of undead which had moderate speed, low intelligence and had simple movements which was an extreme advantage for him. They can be killed easily by fire and physical attacks take a lot of time or requires a sharp attack to the head or spines of the zombies. Beheading them killed them instantly like any other monster. Moreover, zombies of monsters are also seen, but these aren't that different and were also slow moving.

The only problem with them was that they would usually be in large numbers and unless one made a fatal attack they wouldn't die and try to kill even if they accidentally attack other zombies. They would not care about their own injuries either and just attack whomever they could find. This makes it difficult to handle when there are smaller number of player and larger number of zombies.

Looking at the situation, Balthazar was initially stunned. He didn't expect such a large number of enemies to defeat. "I doubt even those gamers who managed to get it last time had a test of this difficulty. Considering that I already have a unique equipment, the difficulty of the test was increased," thought Balthazar. He didn't know that his difficulty was increased because he was being monitored specially through the game.

"The good thing is that there quite a number of torches here and I am already used to killing zombies. I even got a crossbow from the vault and dynamites for emergency situations," thought Balthazar reflecting on his previous experiences.

He ran at his highest speed to a nearby zombies kicking it back into the centre of the tunnel. This would aggravate them, and more would come towards him which is what he needed right now. He quickly used his dagger to cut through the bolts and pulled off a torch from its bracket on the wall and smashed it close on the zombies approaching.

The oil from the torch spilled all over them lighting them up in fire. Though he could always keep killing them with a good swing to behead these zombies, killing a number as big as five thousand would put him in dire straits and completely tire him out. He decided to use as many tricks as he had and slowly move ahead without haste and started using the resources which were available in the tunnel.

The burning zombies try to put out the fire on them and in general, zombies which were afraid of fire always tried to avoid it unless a necromancer (kind of summoner) would direct it to fight even while burning. So, elementalists were always considered the best counter to zombies. This was the best thing for Shadow to attack in these circ.u.mstances.

He aimed for the heads of the zombies while he always threw the burning zombies at the other ones. With his attributes, skill and experience, it was quite easy for him to do so. But it was a slow progress. The zombies were slow, and he also didn't attack unless he saw a perfect shot which could take their head off.

By the time, he managed to kill 2000 zombies, it had been about four hours. It could be considered that he took more about 7 seconds per zombie, but it wasn't really so. Shadow was still used to attacking in short bursts like an assassin. He just used the fire to herd the zombies closer in smaller groups so that he could cut through the thin decaying necks of the zombies in the smaller with a single strike each.

He had prepared well with about 100 dynamites for this, some of which he used to escape a few unexpected situations. If he had any regrets about his preparations, it was that he didn't put in enough fruits or food in his bag which were the only way replenish his stamina quickly and there weren't any stamina potions available at this stage of the game either.

After the first 2000 the zombies changed, it was no longer the human zombie, it changed to zombie cats. Zombie cats were a large sub class of zombies including various wild cat monsters which are zombified. Luckily, these didn't have the usual speed of wild cats and were like other zombies. Only difference was they made sudden dashes to attack like the cats and tried to tear the opponent with fangs or claws.

But these weren't considered a tough opponent by Shadow either. It was faster for him to kill these zombies. Once, they made a dash attack that was easy for him to escape it due to his high agility, he quickly cut off their heads which were in close range for him. Apart from trying to herd them using fire and kill the small groups, this behavior of these zombies allowed him to kill faster.